By now Astronomy Day

is history. This is the second year I've not been able to attend. Last year I was out of town and this year it's work. I would suppose that it was a smashing success. The weather was clear during the day for solar observing and in the evening for Mars, etc. As I look outside now (local time, 12:49 AM) there is a thick fog blanketing everything. I hope all the club members are not contending with this on their drive home.

Last night

I was at a meeting of amateur astronomers which is held annually in advance of the local astronomy day. The featured speakers were Tony Freemantle and Mike Tolson, both reporters with the Houston Chronicle. Since this was a meeting of people with an interest in astronomy and space, their talk dealt with the series of articles they had written after the Columbia disaster. I didn't read these articles, so I have no way to critique what they did. But, I was struck by the deep pessimism that both these guys have for NASA and the so called NASA vision. At the same time I was confused by the inconsistent things they said. Tolson said he believed NASA had lost it's vision and there was no constituency for manned space flight; indeed no constituency for space exploration at all. On the other hand, Freemantle said they had polled the public and found that over 80% of the public supported manned space flight.

I personally take a dim view of much of the media's reporting nowadays. But in this case, it was not "investigative" reporting as such so they probably did the best job they could under the circumstances.

But even with the dim view they project for the future of space flight in this country, I do not believe the U.S. will ever give up the space program. NASA has accomplished astounding things and yes, there has been loss of life. Many are advocating that we give up manned space flight completely.

So here's a question: How many lives were lost in the exploration of our planet. The answer is in the thousands. If Columbus or Magellan had just stayed home, where would the world be today. The flame of human spirit may be sputtering but it will never be extinguished.

I've been watching

the continuing media stupidity surrounding a report given by David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group--the organization charged with finding WMD in Iraq.

Even though Mr. Kay's (who by the way is a very intelligent guy) report specifically spells out that the search is still ongoing, the press is trumpeting "No Weapons Found In Iraq" or some other equally goofy headline. You have to wonder if these reporters are living in some parallel universe where anti-matter dominates the scene. One where no matter what anyone says, the interpretation is always 180 degrees away from reality. Maybe the key word here is anti-anything; that is to say, anything the present administration does is wrong.

And maybe some Dimocrats see vultures circling over President Bush but all I see are turkeys.

Not much time

to blog since last week. Fantastic weather, though. Cool fronts are starting to come through every few days and we've had stone clear skies since last Saturday.

My vacation trip to the hill country was fouled up by some weekend work that didn't materialize. It was supposed to be four days of astronomy but looks like not going wasn't such a bad thing after all. We had fairly decent weather in Houston Friday night and clear skies Saturday night while they were having clouds and rain in the hill country. I was kind of looking forward to just getting some time away from the rat race, though.